The need for reliable air transport means is ever increasing. Large cargo aircraft or cargo haulers have been devised in order to meet such demands for air transport.
Aircraft makers having distributed manufacturing facilities have found aircraft of the detached wing type to be useful. Detached wing type airframes have the wing structure detached from the fuselage, rather than having the wing structure integrally formed with the fuselage. This type of airframe allows manufacturing the wing structure in one manufacturing facilities whereas the fuselage structure can be manufactured elsewhere. The airframe may then be assembled by mounting the wing structure to the fuselage at yet another manufacturing facility.
The wing structure, fuselage and the empennage, make up the major components of the airframe. Those components are assembled in a manner so as to arrive at a structure providing the maximum amount of stability and reliability. For example, it is imperative to allow relative displacements between the airframe components in order to better absorb and propagate forces and so obtain a favorable behavior of the airframe to strain occurring during critical phases of aircraft operation. The landing phase may be one example of such a critical phase.
The need for stable and resilient airframe design holds particularly true in case of cargo aircrafts, which are used for example in military missions for troop and heavy equipment deployment. The requirement to cope with a payload in the range of tens of tons combined with the need for performing challenging flight maneuvers in possibly adverse weather conditions subjects the airframe to high tensile and compressive forces.
Designing the airframe to such high standards on stability and reliability often poses challenges to the equally important requirement to ensure that the fuselage stays pressurized during all flight conditions. This is because, especially in airframes of the detached wing type in high or low wing constructions, gaps within the airframe may be necessitated due to those design requirements. A variable geometry aircraft seal for swing-wing aircraft is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,272.
There is therefore a need for reliable sealing means to seal gaps in the airframe designs of the detached wing type. In addition, other needs, desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent summary and detailed description, and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background.